What If
by MerryLittlePoet
Summary: Of course you never get past the 'What If'. As short as unnecessary.


**Another litlle drabble. Nothing to special, but considering the amount of fanfiction about this pairing, or rather the lack thereof, you'll probably take what you can get, no?**

Of course you never get past the 'What If's.

It's been half a year.

Six months.

183 days.

Since the two of you had to fight your way to the closest representation of hell you never wanted to see and killed its creator.

What if you hadn't been able to save her? Had been to slow, to weak, to scared?

You can't really bring yourself to think about it.

Why would you even want to do that?

You're meeting up daily ever since … then. You visited her at the hospital, the few days they kept her for observation, her wounds having disappeared along with the one that brought them upon her.

You helped her with the moving, her new room bearing the number 101 and way to new for possession or undead roommates inside the walls.

After that it's mostly been her suddenly knocking on your door, Nr. 104, gifting you with gentle smiles and little stories and the sparkle of her freckles in the light filtering through the windows (one of them is always open now, even during winter, the blindings hardly ever down).

You enjoy listening to her, no matter if she tells you of ancient empires or all day life with two older sisters. She listens to you to, close and patient, when you stutter out meaningless anecdotes of your past or try to explain whatever drove you to take a certain picture.

She listens and watches and smiles and sometimes …. But no, you don't dare to let your thoughts stray in that direction.

You hardly ever talk about what happened … back then.

Maybe you should, really, but whenever a conversation nears said topic a shiver will run through her body and fear springs to her eyes and you can't bear to see her like that.

And here come the 'What If's ' again.

What if you dared to comfort her in such moments?

Hold her, hell, even brought up the guts to say something as trivial as ''It's fine now, you're alright. He's gone. I'm here, I'm here, _I'm here.''_

Because you are, and you always will be, until the day she tells you to leave.

What if you dared to tell her that?

To tell her all that and everything else, to tell her that you protected her back then and would do it again should it come to that, to tell her that she was the only thing that had kept you going when you had already given up on yourself.

What if you dared to tell her that it had been her, the sound of her unsteady steps behind you in a world of flesh and rust, her soft touch and her worry for you and the braveness with which she followed you to hell and back, almost beaten to death and still fighting, that had kept you clinging to life, to hope, back then?

What if you told her that you worried the second the door closed behind her, worried that she might be snatched away and dragged towards another world, worried that you might never see her again until you heard her knock (lightly, four times, impossible to mistake) the next day?

That the nightmares where always worst when you didn't know where she was?

That nothing could light up your day more than the shine of her eyes?

What if you dared to tell her that somewhere along your journey or maybe even before you fell in love with her?

What if?

But it doesn't matter, because you never will.

You may be able do defeat all monsters of hell plus the devil himself, but all of this is nothing against telling Eileen Galvin, sweet, caring Eileen, who obviously cares about you, who checks up on you daily and makes sure you get out of your apartment regularly and manages to laugh at you terrible attempts on humor, how you feel.

Aren't you just the hero?

Someone knocking softly at your door rips brings you back to reality.

You don't have to guess who it is and then the woman previously on your thoughts is smiling up at you, a hint of freckles alight on her cheeks.

"Hey Henry, how are you?"

You smile and shrug and step aside to allow her in.

It's routine by now.

What if?

Maybe one day.


End file.
